Huntin' or 
 
 
 
Lawlessness 
 
 
 
What's Your 
 
 
Choice? 
 
 
By 
A. E. ANDREWS 
 
 
B EING a rank outsider-especially rank 
     -I'd like to tell Minnesota something, 
     but I won't. What right would I have 
to hint to Minnesota that the Cloquet, White- 
face, Paleface and some other streams on 
the way from Duluth to Eveleth ought to 
be stocked with trout? So I shall forget all 
about the time Art Von and I fished the 
Rain Falls-all about the time he and I 
walked from Freedom down to the old 
track to 51 and 49 of the Beaver River- 
all about the conclusions I might draw 
from fishing with the Gold Island Club up 
on Lake Vermilion-all about the time on 
Elbow Lake-all about-. 
  My subject is "Hain't We Doin' It in 
Indiana ?" I've been cussed and discussed 
so much for this subject that I have almost 
quit mentioning it. And only this year the 
Indiana Farmer's Guide got out signs, in 
waterproof ink on good cloth, which said: 
"Hunting allowed here, only by written 
permission of the owner. This is private 
property and persons who trespass without 
obtaining permission of the owner will be 
prosecuted under the provisions of the 
law." So the idea seems to be going for- 
ward. 
  You get a better idea of what it's all 
about when you consider how     W. W. 
Lucas, former secretary of the Indiana 
Division, I. W. L. A., and I talked once 
when we were out driving. 
  Said Bill: "Good place over there for 
quail." 
  Said I: "I'd like to go hunting in a 
place like that and feel welcome. I'd like 
to buy a ticket at the entrance to the lane 
and drive right up to the house and feel 
I'd paid my way." 
  Said Bill: "Let's get it that way." 
  Then along came Fred Stuck from the 
National Headquarters of the I. W. L. A. 
Fred got the idea and set it down on paper, 
the first time the things Bill and I and 
others had talked of had ever been thought 
out through a typewriter. The idea was 
to set aside a tract and interest the farm- 
ers; to stock the tract, give the game pro- 
tection and feed and let the farmers collect 
for the hunting.    Lancaster township, 
Huntington county, Indiana, was chosen. 
We got no complaint from the farmers, 
but we got kicked in town. Men said they 
did not want to pay to hunt; willing to buy 
guns, ammunition, dogs, knives, match 
boxes, pants, shirts, coats, boots, socks, but 
not willing to pay an admission. Only the 
other day I got a letter from Kalamazoo, 
Michigan, arguing the question with me. 
But the Lancaster project goes gayly for- 
ward. It is a success. 
 
 
0 0 
 
 
Millions of acres of mar- 
ginal lands in Minnesota 
should be restored to their 
original purposes, of grow- 
ing woodlots, protecting 
watersheds, and furnish- 
ing wild life refuges and 
outdoor places....... 
 
 
  The farmers did not get rich from the 
plan. One man got $10 in 1931, which was 
not very much. We asked the farmers not 
to let birds be shot for two years, but 
some of them liked to shoot quail and they 
invited some of their friends out and shot 
them. That was their business, not ours. 
We planted 200 pheasants and obtained a 
few hundred pheasant eggs. These Asiatic 
birds have done well. 
  On the farmer's side of the case you find 
this as soon as a project of this kind is 
started: That the back-fence climber stays 
off-the sneak, the poultry thief, the game 
hog; and the decent man comes. The old 
idea of sticking up a sign saying "No 
Trespassing" did  not work. The law- 
abiding citizen remained aloof, but the 
poacher said to himself: "Here's a place 
where there's game. The sports stay away 
from it; so I'll sneak on and get mine." 
He did sneak on. The farmer thought he 
was a sportsman and he cussed all the 
sportsmen in the world. So the sportsmen 
 
 
and the farmer were at odds and the sneak 
got the grapes-in this case the quail and 
rabbits. 
  Lancaster farmers have found that the 
hunter is not such a bad sort after all, and 
the hunter has found that the farmer is not 
an irritable, irritating, unreasonable, fault- 
finding, peevish, narrow-minded individual, 
as he once imagined. And the law-violator 
does not go on the premises-at least not 
in such great numbers as was once the 
case. 
  So it happened that only a short time 
ago, the Indiana farm publication, for the 
first time in American history, so far as 
we know, came to the assistance of the 
idea and offered to farmers signs with the 
foregoing wording, to be sold at the cost 
of printing plus postage. 
  Would it work in Minnesota? I don't 
live in Minnesota; so how should I know? 
All I know is what has been done here, 
plus a few general notions. And here is 
one general idea that I have garnered along 
the way: That unless sportsmen of the 
Tom, Dick and Harry kind get together 
with the farmers, Mr. Iva Lotta Dough and 
Mr. Bushelbucks will have them all in their 
list. In one state adjoining Indiana there 
was organized last year a shooting club 
that went out wholesale-fashion to lease 
hunting rights from the farmers with an 
idea of keeping You, Me & Co. off the 
land. We pay 25 cents a hunt in Lancaster 
township to shoot rabbits; get our admis- 
sion tickets signed by the farmer and turn 
in the tickets and show our game on the 
way out. That is better than standing in 
the road and hearing Bushelbucks loose 
both barrels into a bevy of birds. Before 
I am cussed any more by men in Salem, 
Massachusetts; Atlanta, Georgia; Alpena, 
         (Continued on Page 15) 
 
 
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